Recently in Employment Law Category

The Employment Relations Minister Edward Davey has announced plans to fund two pilot schemes aimed at bringing alternative dispute resolution into employment disputes.

The schemes, which will run in Manchester and Cambridge, will allow small and medium-sized businesses the opportunity to participate in mediation-networks to help them settle employment disputes quicker and for less money.

The announcement comes off the back of figures which show that there were a staggering 218,000 claims made by employees against employers last year. Each claim costs a small business around £4,000 to defend, and the court system costs the taxpayer some £84m to run.

The Government's plan to cut red tape for micro businesses has been branded a gimmick, after it was revealed that in the past year firms employing fewer than ten staff were not exempt from a single regulation. The claim was made by the head of regulatory affairs at the Institute of Directors, Alexander Ehmann.

"It's the Emperor's New Clothes. The moratorium exists, but it hasn't been applied to anything. Unless it is applied, it is meaningless," he said.

The Government introduced the scheme in April 2011, saying that it would relieve the burden of red tape on businesses employing fewer than ten people. The move was designed to try to boost innovation in the small business sector, which it was hoped would help carry the UK out of recession and into growth.

A leading City employment lawyer has warned that banks will be hit by a series of legal claims if they press ahead with plans to limit or even deny some staff their annual bonus.

The claim comes as British banks take stock of 2011 and start the process of deciding the levels of bonus payments to be made in 2012.

It has been a poor year for the share prices of many of the country's biggest banks, and this despite all of them announcing healthy profits.

The next twelve months will see several major changes in employment law and businesses are being advised to get acquainted with these changes, or risk falling foul of new legislation in 2012. Here is a chronological guide to some of the major changes:

February

On the 1^st of the month the maximum weekly pay used to calculate statutory redundancy will increase from £400 to £430, and the maximum unfair dismissal compensation award will increase from £68,400 to £72,300.

Young people often don't think too much about pensions when there are so many other, more immediate, things to be concerned with such as getting on the property ladder, forging their careers or starting families.

But changes to state pensions mean that workers in their twenties and thirties now cannot be entirely certain when they will be able to claim their state pension: it could be as late as in their seventies, and so Liberal Democrat minister Steve Webb has warned young workers to start planning for their retirement.

Mr Webb claimed that it would be unfair to give young people an exact age for retirement since this could potentially change in the coming years. He said: "I don't think any government can be precise. The alternative is spurious accuracy, to say exactly what their pension age will be."

Birmingham City Council has lost an appeal to prevent 174 female former-employees from taking their equal-pay claim to the High Court, which may result in the council paying out millions of pounds in compensation.

While equal-pay claims are normally heard at employment tribunals and can only take place within six months of the employee leaving their job, the High Court allows employment cases to be heard up to six years after the employment has ended.

This has allowed the 174 women to bring their claim for back pay, which runs to about £3 million, and potentially opens the gates for thousands of other female former-employees to make claims.

In what is thought to be the "biggest action since the 1926 general strike", millions of public sector workers plan to strike tomorrow, Wednesday 30 November, after an agreement about pensions could not be reached with the Government.

The industrial action, occurring nationwide, are to be co-ordinated by the Trade Union Congress and will involve around 50 branches of 30 unions, seven of which are not affiliated with the TUC. The unions will represent 2.6 million workers from different public sector industries including hospital workers and teachers.

The recently proposed changes to pensions such as extending the state pension age, forcing workers to pay more from their salaries into their pensions, making them work longer hours and forcing them to accept pensions based on "career average salaries" rather than final salaries, are the reasons behind the strike action.

Despite unpaid internships being a topic of contention for the past few years, with several cases of interns suing for lack of payment in various industries, it seems that MPs are guilty of regularly taking on interns for long periods without paying them and therefore breaking minimum wage laws.

The House of Commons website Work for MP shows that there have been 260 unpaid internships offered since the election, some lasting as long as 10 months without even providing expenses.

National minimum wage must be paid to anyone who is classed as a 'worker'. According to legal advice provided internally to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills ministers, "most interns are likely to be workers, and therefore entitled to the NMW."

The Government has published a report into absences from work due to sickness in both the private and public sector. The report outlines recommendations to help reduce the amount of sickness-absences and in turn to reduce the yearly cost to taxpayers of £13billion.

Measures recommended in the report include offering tax breaks to firms who employ or take on people with long-term illnesses.

Also, rather than employees' GPs authorising their long-term absence from work due to sickness, the report recommends that an independent panel should review the employee's capability for work.

Working in the financial sector usually means long hours, targets to be met and, increasingly these days, a lack of job security. It's no wonder then that workers in the industry are making more claims for lost earnings through stress than ever before.

London-based law firm GQ Employment Law have reported receiving considerably more stress-related legal claims in 2011 than in 2010.

Jon Gilligan, partner at GQ Employment, said: "The incredibly tough trading conditions and volatility of the last four years has led to record levels of stress and mental illness within the City.

The Citizens Advice Bureau, an independent national charity that provides free legal, consumer and financial advice, has warned the Government that legal aid cuts will result in more people taking their grievances to employment tribunals.

While the Government aims to save taxpayers' money by resolving disputes before they come to court, the CAB predicts legal aid cuts will have the opposite effect since it will no longer be able to provide people with free advice and assistance.

The CAB supports the Government's pledge to protect vulnerable workers from exploitative employers, but claims that it is "meaningless" to promise this while simultaneously removing access to legal aid.

The second most senior judge in England and Wales has voiced his support for adhering to the section of the Equality Act which would give priority to women and ethnic minorities when top law job appointments are made.

Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury believes that when two applicants for a role are equally matched, preference should be given to women or ethnic minorities over white men.

He said that he had "no difficulty" with applying section 159 of the Equality Act to the senior judiciary, which would allow "positive" or "affirmative" action in relation to recruitment in England, Wales and Scotland.

Although you are free to take industrial action without the courts being able to force you to return to, or stay at, work, you will probably be in breach of your employment contract in doing so. This means you will probably be sacrificing your pay and, depending on the circumstances of the strike, you may face dismissal. Therefore, if you are thinking about joining your colleagues on a strike, you should seek advice on your employment rights before doing so.

What are the implications of taking part in protected or unprotected industrial action?

If you intend to join in with a strike that is official action organised by your trade union in accordance with the law, then it will usually constitute 'protected industrial action', meaning that you will probably be protected from being dismissed as a result of it.

Following the recent implementation of the new Agency Workers Regulations (AWR), employers in the food retail industry have been trying to use a legal loophole to save money by paying their temporary workers less.

Morrisons, following the lead of Tesco, confirmed it has "held discussions" with its recruiters about using the 'Swedish derogation' model to cope with the AWR, stating this is a "legitimate option for temporary employees".

The AWR, which came into effect in October, afforded agency workers the same rights to pay and working conditions as permanent staff. It was designed to offer temporary workers more protection.

Three nurses based in Manchester suffered bullying and victimisation at the hands of their colleagues after they made complaints about a member of staff who had lied about his qualifications.

While the law protects whistleblowers from reprisals from their employer, it does not extend to fellow employees, and when the nurses eventually lost their jobs through the treatment of their colleagues, they were not protected by employment law.

Jennie Fecitt, Annie Woodcock and Felicity Hughes worked at walk-in centres for NHS Manchester. After they blew the whistle on the colleague who had lied about his qualifications, they found themselves subjected to bullying by other colleagues, which resulted in the entire team becoming dysfunctional.